Motherboard w/Native support of BLU-RAY & 1080P?

rporetti · Post by **rporetti** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 2:20 pm

I have been scouring the net getting information about motherboards that will handle 1080P *smoothly* and it seems like just when I find something - you can't actually buy it! Very frustrating...

Has anyone purchased a Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H for an HTPC that handilly plays 1080p HD DVD or Blue Ray?

How about other manufactuers' motherboards?

I'm looking for something that has has an HDCP enabled HDMI port on the motherboard and actually works with 1080P without choking...

Oh... socket AM2 - preferable...

Any help is really appreciated!

Cheers!

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 6:09 pm

Any of the ATI 690G chipset based mobo with a fast enough processor should be able to handle 1080p HD DVD.

I was able to get an X2 Brisbane 4000+ overclocked to 2.3GHz to smoothly play back HD DVD titles like King Kong and Superman Returns.

See this thread here viewtopic.php?t=42612&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30.

and here: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41419.

rporetti · Post by **rporetti** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 8:21 pm

frank2003 wrote:Any of the ATI 690G chipset based mobo with a fast enough processor should be able to handle 1080p HD DVD.

Now see, thats the problem... I don't believe that's 100% true. I've already read some reviews on motherboards that do not and some manufactures actually state something like: "1080p may not play smoothly". Not much of a guarantee... is it?

1080p is very different from 720p or 1080i - so saying that you played an HD DVD title or a Blu-Ray title, does not mean it is 1080p - only some recent titles were release in this format. I believe King Kong was 720p - could you check your disc?

I'm planning a 5200+ with 2Gb of 800MHz RAM - so I'm not worring about the support stuff. But the only motherboard review that I've seen that did a number of specific tests with 1080p BR/HD DVD playbacks was that Gigabyte board - and I can't find a single Canadian retailer that has one is stock...

So... does anyone own the ASUS card and uses it to play 1080p?

Drexl · Post by **Drexl** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 9:03 pm

Nearly all HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc titles are 1080p. The only exceptions that I know of are the Chronos HD DVD which I believe is 1080i, a few 1080i Discovery titles, and a few porn titles that are 720p. Now, there were a handful of earlier Warner titles that were sourced from 1080i masters but they are indeed encoded as 1080p on the discs (The Fugitive, The Perfect Storm, Full Metal Jacket - though a new edition of FMJ is coming which may remedy this). I don't know who told you that titles like King Kong are 720p, but whoever said that is wrong.

Mikael · Post by **Mikael** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 2:47 am

As long as you have a fast enough CPU, you can play 1080P material on any motherboard. It's only if you need assistance from the onboard GPU that you need to take the motherboard into consideration.

The issue of HDCP encoded output from the IGP is of course motherboard related, though. I'm not familiar with what's going on on that front, since I've only played non-DRM HD material from the HD so far.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:51 am

Wait for the new generation of chipsets from ATI (780) and Nvidia series 8 with native 1080p hardware decoding and processing and (not a must for video playback but for gaming at the future) direct x10. Ati's will be available early 2008 and nvidia in November of 2007.

At most of the manuals of today mobos they have as minimum req of cpu x2 5200 and there are notices that "1080p is not supported by the current software". Software or maybe hardware?? I don't have blue ray drive but from reviews looks that the 1080p support is something relevant. If you are not in a hurry be smart to wait 1-2 months.

With asus mobo m2a-vm hdmi (690g) i can play wmv video of 1080p. But this is not something to be happy as i was able to play these files with almost same cpu utilization with my previous generation nvidia 6150 chipset that has NO HD capabilities! The only difference is that with 690 i can play these files on dvi output because of HDCP which is absent on 6150 and i was getting picture only from VGA port.

Also is it random that the equivalent of 690, 7050 of nvidia chipset based asrock motherboard is named "alive 7 HDReady"?
The datasheets of next gen chipsets are clearly saying "HD hardware support - HD avivo for ati and HD purevideo for nvidia, something that is not present at 690G-7050.

So just WAIT! Be aware of promotional proposes reviews!

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 1:50 pm

papakoo wrote:Wait for the new generation of chipsets from ATI (780) and Nvidia series 8 with native 1080p hardware decoding and processing and (not a must for video playback but for gaming at the future) direct x10. Ati's will be available early 2008 and nvidia in November of 2007.

At most of the manuals of today mobos they have as minimum req of cpu x2 5200 and there are notices that "1080p is not supported by the current software". Software or maybe hardware?? I don't have blue ray drive but from reviews looks that the 1080p support is something relevant. If you are not in a hurry be smart to wait 1-2 months.

The problem is that itâ€™s hard to say when motherboards that support 1080P acceleration on their IGPs will hit retail and when the drivers for your Operating System will be available and mature. Itâ€™s not unusual for such features to be available months after the hardware was released and support varies depending on whether you use XP or Vista.

puddnhead · Post by **puddnhead** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 2:52 pm

Supposedly the board I have in my Fusion HTPC build will do it, the MSI K9AGM2-FIH using the 690G. It has a built in HDMI port and is advertised as HDCP compliant and capable of 1080p even with the onboard graphics (I would imagine if you dropped in a card the question is moot?). Sorry I wouldn't know personally though, I don't have hddvd/blue-ray, and anyway my low-end AMD x2 3600+ is probably underpowered for full 1080p. I just got a minimal CPU for now because it's plenty enough for the 1080i/720p that I do watch, and by the time I can get a 1080p drive/discs cheap enough I'm guessing I'll be able to swap in a 25w 9000+ for thirty bucks

For some reason no one here has much interst in it, I bet if you search the forum on it you'll find I'm the only one who's ever mentioned it.

Search for some reviews on it on other sites though, I think some people did try and got acceptable results when using a faster CPU? I can't remember anymore for sure, I bought it in spring.

puddnhead · Post by **puddnhead** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 2:56 pm

papakoo wrote:Also is it random that the equivalent of 690, 7050 of nvidia chipset based asrock motherboard is named "alive 7 HDReady"?
The datasheets of next gen chipsets are clearly saying "HD hardware support - HD avivo for ati and HD purevideo for nvidia, something that is not present at 690G-7050.

I don't know what "HD Avivo" is, or how it differs from "Avivo", but Avivo is for HD, and is in the 690g chipset in my board. Maybe I'm misunderstanding?

puddnhead · Post by **puddnhead** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 3:10 pm

Hmmm, I decided to search a little to refresh my memory, and discovered AMD just put a BIOS update out for 690g just 35 days ago which is supposed to make 1080p a reality. They apparently recommend 4600+ or above.

http://www.hdtvinfo.eu/news/hdtv-articl ... oding.html

skomes · Post by **skomes** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 5:52 pm

puddnhead wrote:Hmmm, I decided to search a little to refresh my memory, and discovered AMD just put a BIOS update out for 690g just 35 days ago which is supposed to make 1080p a reality. They apparently recommend 4600+ or above.

http://www.hdtvinfo.eu/news/hdtv-articl ... oding.html

Yeah they did, and the performance improvements for IGP are very minimal. Still helps to beat out the nvidia IGP though which is probably why they did it. Other than that it also increases memory bandwidth.

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 3:17 am

It seems to be a bit of a minefield in getting 1080P with an IGP due to driver issues and HDMI audio connectivity and synchronicity problems. If you donâ€™t need audio over HDMI then that should make it easier. I donâ€™t think Intelâ€™s G33 chipset driver supports HD-DVD and Bluray at all yet!
AMD seem to have got it right with the HD 2000 series PCIe cards supporting HDMI natively and with audio on chip as well. Hopefully theyâ€™ll do the same thing with their next generation IGP. The AMD approach seems better than Nvidias at the moment although the lower end HD 2000 series seem less successful at HD decoding. Even so Iâ€™d hope that the next generation chipset will offer enough HD decode assistance to only require an entry level dual-core Athlon X2.

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 6:27 am

I can't hardly get 1080i to play smoothly on the 690G within Vista Media Center, how are you guys getting 1080p to play smoothly?
For 1080i, I tried Cyberlink and Microsoft's decoder. It plays smoothly for the most part, but CPU utilization is up to 80% (AMD X2 4400+) and there are spots where it gets a little tripped up.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:11 am

puddnhead wrote:
papakoo wrote:Also is it random that the equivalent of 690, 7050 of nvidia chipset based asrock motherboard is named "alive 7 HDReady"?
The datasheets of next gen chipsets are clearly saying "HD hardware support - HD avivo for ati and HD purevideo for nvidia, something that is not present at 690G-7050.
I don't know what "HD Avivo" is, or how it differs from "Avivo", but Avivo is for HD, and is in the 690g chipset in my board. Maybe I'm misunderstanding?

HD avivo as described on ati/amd's pages is processing and hardware accelerated driver for High Definition. Plain one is not for HD despite of promotional reviews i'm afraid.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:13 am

puddnhead wrote:Hmmm, I decided to search a little to refresh my memory, and discovered AMD just put a BIOS update out for 690g just 35 days ago which is supposed to make 1080p a reality. They apparently recommend 4600+ or above.

http://www.hdtvinfo.eu/news/hdtv-articl ... oding.html

It had been discussed and there is no actual difference. (Maybe 1% or2)

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 6:36 pm

GnatGoSplat wrote:I can't hardly get 1080i to play smoothly on the 690G within Vista Media Center, how are you guys getting 1080p to play smoothly?
For 1080i, I tried Cyberlink and Microsoft's decoder. It plays smoothly for the most part, but CPU utilization is up to 80% (AMD X2 4400+) and there are spots where it gets a little tripped up.

When I first built my Biostar TA690G system, I was surprised how effortlessly the 690G was able to play HD contents on a 1080p HDTV in Windows XP.

To start, make sure you have the correct driver (I installed CCC 7.6; The latest is version 7.9). Then install VLC.

Pick up some 1080i HDTV recordings from here:
http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/Eng/Download/Demo.aspx
My system with X2 4000+ (2.1ghz stock) underclocked to 1.6ghz had no problem playing these clips at around 60% CPU utilization without stuttering.

Once you are able to play the above, then you will want to try the 1080p from here:
http://www.drfoster.f2s.com/trailers_hd-dvd.shtml

The above WMV clips will require 1.8ghz or faster processor. But your 4400+ should have absolutely no problem playing them.

Now you can graduate to more resource hungry 1080p contents, like the FCL 1080p clip here http://www.elecard.com/download/clips.php
I can only play it smoothly with PowerDVD. VLC stops/freezes badly.

I think your hardware should be fast enough to play 1080p HD DVD using PowerDVD without overclocking.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

rporetti · Post by **rporetti** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:19 am

First of all thanks for everyone's commentary - some useful information...

Drexl wrote:Nearly all HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc titles are 1080p. The only exceptions that I know of are the Chronos HD DVD which I believe is 1080i, a few 1080i Discovery titles, and a few porn titles that are 720p. Now, there were a handful of earlier Warner titles that were sourced from 1080i masters but they are indeed encoded as 1080p on the discs (The Fugitive, The Perfect Storm, Full Metal Jacket - though a new edition of FMJ is coming which may remedy this). I don't know who told you that titles like King Kong are 720p, but whoever said that is wrong.

It seems sir, that your are 100% correct... and so my apologies: I should know better then to "regurgitate" stuff I read elsewhere without properly researching it myself. As a broadcast engineer, I should know better...

This site is an excellent resource in that regard: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:40 pm

1080p is easier than 1080i to play on the GPU. The reason is that 1080i is hard on the GPU to deinterlace correctly. 1080p is harder on the cpu to decode.

The 6150 does have HD capabilities and can do hardware acceleration of mpeg2, VC-1, and H.264. It cannot help much because the clock is slow at 475mhz (HD acceleration is dependant on the graphics clock) It cannot do Inverse Telecine or spacial temporal deinterlacing on HD material so your deinterlacing is not as good as a 7600GT and up. I had trouble getting the 6150 to output 1080p, but 720p was no problem. The 7050 and 690 appear to be able to handle 1080p.

rporetti · Post by **rporetti** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 5:57 am

Does anyone here, own the GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H? I've seen two excellent reviews:

Gold Award

Bulls-Eye Award

Wondering how this MB is performing in the field. The reviews made comparisons (favourably) against the Asus MB...

One other side comment: Most of the reviews I've read on motherboards that are explicitly made for the HTPC markets, are *barely* evaluated on what today's HTPC core function is - to play HD media.

It seems common knowledge that playing HD media is a difficult task and that the inability to play some formats would make a product a "non-starter" - for most folks. (ie: Why buy/build a system that can't handle the entire gamut of ATSC formats?)

So why isn't anyone properly evaluating these products under those conditions? Am I missing something here?

Cheers!

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:39 am

I completely agree.
I also don't understand when they test playback of HD media using desktop programs like Windows Media Player, PowerDVD, or WinDVD. Does anyone build an HTPC to sit in front of it and navigate it with a mouse? They should test with Media Center because I imagine most HTPC users want to navigate remotely from the couch. From my experience, just because something works great in Media Player doesn't mean it will work in Media Center. Media Player supports different modes that are less demanding like Overlay while Media Center needs EVR or VMR9.

Too often I will buy a motherboard whose IGP received glowing reviews on its HDTV capability only to find those capabilities are very lacking in Media Center and I have to keep my video card.

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 3:22 pm

rporetti wrote:One other side comment: Most of the reviews I've read on motherboards that are explicitly made for the HTPC markets, are *barely* evaluated on what today's HTPC core function is - to play HD media.
It seems common knowledge that playing HD media is a difficult task and that the inability to play some formats would make a product a "non-starter" - for most folks. (ie: Why buy/build a system that can't handle the entire gamut of ATSC formats?)
So why isn't anyone properly evaluating these products under those conditions? Am I missing something here?

It depends what you mean by HD media. If you look at the slow uptake of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray then the majority of people arenâ€™t currently interested in playing those formats AT ALL, let alone on a PC. This isnâ€™t surprising given the format war and the high cost of High Definition optical drives for the PC.
When most PC users/reviewers talk about HD video they are referring to the other formats such as DivX, WMV, HDV, Quicktime etc which are far less demanding to play and also easier for reviewers to benchmark.
As an aside, the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on is not recommended at all for the SPCR crowd as it is ridiculously noisy.

GnatGoSplat wrote:I also don't understand when they test playback of HD media using desktop programs like Windows Media Player, PowerDVD, or WinDVD. Does anyone build an HTPC to sit in front of it and navigate it with a mouse? They should test with Media Center because I imagine most HTPC users want to navigate remotely from the couch.

One reason may be that Media Centre may not even support cutting edge technologies so this option isnâ€™t available for testing. Does XP MCE support HD-DVD and Blu-ray playback?
When you also consider that relatively few people own XP MCE edition itâ€™s not surprising that in the past this platform wasnâ€™t the obvious one to use for reviews. With most Vista versions incorporating the MCE interface this situation may change though.

I do play videos on my PC but because the video files I play are typically 30 to 90 minutes long it doesnâ€™t bother me that I have to go the PC to change media every 60 minutes or so. Iâ€™m old enough to remember when I had to get up to change records every 3 or 20 minutes. ï

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:12 pm

Absolutely VRM9 and EVR are more demanding on video cards than media center that defaults to overlay. Most reviewers don't know what they are doing and that is the problem.

I use SageTV for my HTPC. I rarely use a mouse and it is only for admin tasks. Most of the content I play is 1080i and I have a heck of a time finding a motherboard that can do VMR9 with 1080i properly. I resorted to discrete graphics and even then it is hard to get good performance without jutters, stutters, and jaggies.

rporetti · Post by **rporetti** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:35 am

So what did you settle on then? (motherboard and graphics card)